Publications - Education and Society Program

Ambitious reforms across the country are reshaping teacher evaluation and performance management. Designing new systems for measuring teacher effectiveness and using that information to increase student achievement are at the heart of these efforts and at the center of important policy debates. Yet little information exists about how these systems work in practice and how to use evaluations in concert with other levers to improve teaching and learning.

As policymakers and education leaders seek to accelerate reform in this area, it is essential to learn from efforts already underway. The Education & Society Program published three new reports: profiles of the performance management work in District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) and the Achievement First (AF) charter school network; and a synthesis of issues that emerge from the two profiles. Both DCPS and AF are at the forefront of efforts to re-design teacher evaluation, performance management, and compensation policies. The commonalities, distinctions, and early lessons learned in these initiatives represent an important learning laboratory for the field.

Building Teacher Evaluation Systems: Learning from Leading Efforts [Summary report]

Achievement First: Developing a Teacher Performance Management System that Recognizes Excellence

District of Columbia Public Schools: Defining Instructional Expectations and Aligning Accountability and Support

This publication is the product of a workshop on accountability policy held in Aspen, Colorado in July 2009. This paper recommends a set of six core accountability principles to help frame future conversations about the next generation of accountability policies in education.

Edited by Rachel E. Curtis and Judy Wurtzel, foreword by Michael F. Bennet, Senator from Colorado

Teaching Talent presents a framework for human capital development that draws on a two-year initiative by the Aspen Institute Education and Society Program to research sectors that have effective, well-developed human capital systems and point the way toward human capital innovations in public education. The book first identifies the elements of a robust human capital strategy in education—teacher recruitment and career development; the principal’s role in ensuring teacher quality; and the district’s role in creating the conditions necessary to support effective human capital management. It then offers a comprehensive, visionary framework that weaves these elements together. More.